Autonomous mobile robots and the software controlling them have steadily evolved in both complexity and functionality in recent years. Robotic and automated vehicles for delivering or transporting materials indoors (as well as outdoors) have been developed and utilized in a number of applications. For example, autonomous mobile robots have been developed for pulling carts or wagons which are useful in an industrial setting, such as hospitals and the like. The carts or wagons can include virtually any item required for delivery or retrieval. In a hospital setting, for example, such items can include, but are not limited to, lab work/results, blood, patient records, medications, emergency room (ER) materials/equipment, supplies, meals, etc. Alternately, the cart or cargo carrying area may be incorporated integrally with the autonomous mobile robot vehicle.
Such autonomous mobile robots are designed to be able to navigate alongside humans in real world situations, even when presented with complex and ever changing environments. For example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 7,100,725, 7,431,115 and 7,894,939, which are assigned to the owner of the present invention and are incorporated by reference herein in their entireties, describe exemplary autonomous mobile robotic vehicles that may be utilized or implemented in accordance with the inventive system and method described herein. However, other types of autonomous mobile robotic vehicles may also be utilized/implemented without departing from the spirit and scope of the present invention.
Although these autonomous mobile robotic systems are inherently stable, unpredictable situations are bound to, and do, arise that require human intervention to analyze and resolve. These situations include, among other things, robot idle time (e.g., no motion) which may be caused by facility issues such as, but not limited to, elevator delays, blocked pathways (e.g., obstacles in hallway), and failed equipment (e.g., automated doors not opening on command). Support personnel are typically located at a central location remote from the location(s) of the autonomous mobiles robot vehicles. Support personal will typically monitor and be responsible for any number of fleets of autonomous mobile robots deployed at various locations. In prior art systems, when an autonomous mobile robot encountered a navigation problem or obstacle that it could not navigate around, an e-mail was sent to the remote central support location reporting the problem. The support personal would then receive and read the e-mail, deduce the problem, and then could either take control of the autonomous mobile robot and navigate around the problem or, if necessary, contact appropriate individuals at the vehicle location who could address the problem. However, there are inherent problems with such a prior art approach.
During the time it takes for the remotely located support personnel to receive and read the e-mail, the autonomous mobile robot may have worked itself around the problem or obstacle and currently be continuing on its way. The support personnel would have no way of knowing this, except if the autonomous mobile robot sent another e-mail, which would only be received and read after the support personnel has wasted time trying to solve a problem that does not exist anymore. Additionally, the information contained in the e-mail may not be sufficient for the support personnel to figure out the problem that the autonomous mobile robot in encountering. This is simply because one cannot predict all of the problems and obstacles such a device may encounter. Further, when a plurality of autonomous mobile robot vehicles are encountering navigational problems at or near the same time, support personnel must be able to quickly and accurately figure out which problems are the most severe in order to address them first. Addressing navigational problems via an e-mail report system is often done on a first come first serve basis. Further still, it would be desirable to monitor navigation problems encountered by the various autonomous mobile robots at the various locations in order to analyze such problems to determine if certain areas of certain locations are experiencing a high volume of navigational issues. Modification of these areas at the location may help to alleviate problems going forward.
The presently described system and method is directed toward overcoming one or more of the above-mentioned problems. Although aspects of the inventive system and method will be described herein with reference to a preferred embodiment of a hospital setting, the inventive system and method may be applied in an endless variety of delivery-related applications in many environments (both indoor and outdoor) without departing from the spirit and scope of the present invention.